it was only what mattered the most now
by finnixfire
Summary: They all thought what they knew was the truth, that the unborn child of the monster was gone, but sometimes what appeared was not what was. [Warning - mentions of rape. Also contains spoilers for Crimes of Grindelwald]


**Written for the Quidditch League by Chaser 2 of Puddlemere United.**

**Prompts used: **[quote] 'She didn't want to be insignificant anymore' — Circle of Shadows, Evelyn Skye, [action] Hide, [quote] 'You know what they say about truth and the appearance of truth being opposites.' — The Power, Naomi Alderman

**Word Count: 1141**

**Warnings: Mentions of Rape and spoilers for Crimes of Grindelwald**

**.**

**it was only what mattered the most now**

The first time she had called the doctor, Queenie had yelled into the earpiece. She hadn't known how to use the tele-thing contraption. There had been a questioned _who?_, a beep, and then silence.

The second time she called, she hadn't been able to string two words together through her sobs. The man on the other end of the line had told her he was not a therapist and had rattled off some numbers she hadn't bother remembering.

The third time, she had screamed.

The fourth time, an emotionless voice told her to re-check the phone number. She had the series of numerics committed to memory by now, but Queenie still sought out the little diary she had penned it down in when she had read it from Jacob's mind.

The same thing happened every subsequent time, and she hesitantly told Jacob the device was broken. He asked her, and she told him all about the calls.

"Now this is exactly why the doctor changed his number on us," Jacob had told her while shaking his head, and the eyes that had always looked at her as if she were the most beautiful thing they had ever seen had seemed distant, and dare she say it, cold.

They called her an attention seeker. That her problems were insignificant. That _she_ was insignificant. That she had been acting like a baby when she had walked over to Gellert's side, and she was being a baby now.

They told her she should quit acting like the world rotated around her, that the world owed her something.

Tina wouldn't even look at her, but Queenie had the curse of mind-reading, so she knew exactly what her sister thought of her petty betrayal. Newt avoided her like plague, and Jacob twitched whenever she entered the room. The man she had once wanted to marry had touched her exactly once since she had returned—to save her from falling to the ground when a bout of dizziness had hit her. It was then they had found she carried the Dark Lord's spawn, and the attempts to get rid of it had started.

Magic hadn't been able to impenetrate the protections Gellert had laid around her womb, but the Muggle abortion had seemed to work. Her belly was flat again, the tiny baby-bump gone, and now that there was no visual proof of the way Gellert had tortured her, so of course everyone thought she was perfectly fine.

They all thought what they knew was the truth, that the unborn child of the monster was gone, but sometimes what appeared was not what _was_.

She was a legilimens, and what had once always seemed a wonder to her had turned into a curse somewhere along the way. Thanks to it, she could still sense swivelling colours, mostly shades of red. She saw broken dreams, with colours too bright and sounds too quiet, when she woke up in the dead of the night. She ate too much. She craved for things she used to hate—too much icing on her cupcakes and fizzy lemonades.

She cried out for help when she felt sick, but they told her she was being melodramatic. Her belly stayed flat, her figure pristine. The bags under her eyes were, of course, insignificant.

She could sense another mind even when she tried to run away from the assault of memories, Apparating to woods where no human existed for miles or locking herself in the room Dumbledore had created for her, impenetrable by the thoughts of those outside. As the months passed, the thoughts from the other person evolved. The colours grew dimmer, and Queenie could almost feel new senses develop.

Queenie had always imagined her pregnancy would be beautiful. She would actually be able to sense her child's thoughts and would treasure every single one of them.

Living as an outcast, though, treated as a little girl who had walked over to other side seeking for attention by some and a traitor by others, though… everything those around her thought of her weighed heavily upon her mind, and that, along with the knowledge of who the child belonged to, even if the others didn't believe in its existence, tainted every beautiful feeling she sensed.

Time passed slowly, and as it neared the mark of nine months from the day whose memories she had locked away where no one, not even she herself, could reach them, Queenie knew she had to go.

She didn't want to be insignificant anymore. She wished to make herself important to the soul that dwelled within her, and she wanted to run and hide somewhere where people wouldn't look down at her and her child as dirt. Where her child wouldn't be treated as a monster's offspring.

So she ran, moving and hiding the Muggle way—she had learned a few things during her time with Jacob—and managed to evade the wizards and witches who pursued her across the borders, finally arriving in a land where she didn't understand the language, but the people looked at her with real warmth.

One day, when she woke up in the tiny hovel a kind lady had let her stay in for the night, she could sense something was different. She thanked the woman, not through words but a slight bow, and the smile she got in return told her the woman understood.

Queenie moved through the woods as quickly as she could, her belly becoming larger as the day passed. She used magic freely when she could not walk, deeming herself far enough from those who cared in a way she didn't think much of.

She reached a small village, looking, for once, as pregnant as she really was. The people didn't shirk away from the obvious mess she looked. A tiny woman with black hair and warm, honey-coloured eyes held her arm when she stumbled, supporting her weight and guiding her towards a shack in the middle of the village. The single, small window was lined with herbs and potions in tiny jars. Something warm and sticky trickled down Queenie's legs as her companion knocked on the roughly cut plank that served as a door, and the old woman who opened the door ushered Queenie inside after a single look. The lady and guided her to a mattress made of hay that lay in one corner of the small room.

Hours later, Queenie held a beautiful girl in her arms, a soft tuft of golden hair on her head and captivating blue eyes that shined too bright. The kind, old woman ignored the gold bracelet Queenie offered as payment—the only valuable the younger woman owned now—and reached forward to softly brush a wrinkled hand on the top of her child's tiny head. She gave Queenie a broken-toothed, yet warm smile that the new mother would remember till the day she died.


End file.
